Tales of some Spinners who didn't make it to the big time

LOWELL -- From the moment they arrive brimming with hope and promise each June, reality and curveballs start to chip away at the 88 percent.

From 1996 through 2008, 438 players suited up for the Lowell Spinners of the short-season Class A New York-Penn League. Fifty-four of those players -- or 12.3 percent -- have played at least one game in the major leagues. (We'll give all the boys of 2009-12 sufficient time to fulfill their big-league dreams before updating that percentage.)

Infielder David Eckstein, a Spinner in 1997 who now is semi-retired, has played in the most major-league games of any former Spinner -- 1,311 -- none with the Red Sox.

Catcher Steve Lomasney, who played in Lowell in 1996, had the briefest big-league career among former Spinners so far, one game, the Red Sox's 1999 season-finale in Baltimore. His career dipped after a serious eye injury suffered in 2001 when struck by a line drive during batting practice at Triple-A Pawtucket.

But Lomasney, who runs the Show Baseball Academy in Lawrence, did get to the big leagues.

Roughly 88 percent never will.

Bobby Rodgers, the 'can't-miss' kid

Bobby Rodgers was one former Spinner most Lowell fans were certain would make it.

During the Spinners' 1996 inaugural season, Rodgers, a 17th-round draft pick out of Wake Forest, went 7-4 with a 1.90 ERA.

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In 90 innings, the 6-foot-3, 220-pound right-hander struck out 108 batters, including 16 strikeouts in a game at Utica on July 3, 1996 and two other 10-strikeout games.

His strikeout marks are still club records.

Six players from that first 1996 Spinners team reached the major leagues. Rodgers was not one of them. Today he lives in Groveland, Fla., with his wife Heather, whose family has grown oranges and blueberries for five generations. They have three sons, ages 3, 2, and a newborn. Rodgers, 38, works for Genentech as director of pharmaceutical sales in Florida and Puerto Rico.

He jokes about never being told when he arrived in Lowell that he might not make it to the big leagues.

Or that he might get traded for a back-up outfielder.

That December, Rodgers was home in St. Louis when the Red Sox called to inform him he had just become the player-to-be-named-later in the November deal that sent journeyman outfielder Jesus Tavarez from the Marlins to Boston. (Tavarez would hit .174 in 42 games for the 1997 Red Sox.)

"I remember not understanding how this could be allowed after the season I had," says Rodgers with a chuckle. "Clearly I never had a year like (1996 in Lowell) again. Quite frankly, after the trade, it took me about a year to recover. The Red Sox had become like family."

He pitched four seasons in Double-A Portland, Maine, then a Marlins affiliate. He was promoted to the Marlins' 40-man roster in November 1998. He was chosen in 1999 to attend a seminar in Washington, D.C., to educate prospects on coping with life and temptations in the big leagues. The prospects visited Bill Clinton in the White House.

In 2000, Rodgers was chosen to play in the Arizona Fall League, another promising sign of being on a big-league track. Blaine Neal, a friend who did pitch in the big leagues, joked to Rodgers about knowing no other player who did all that "and never spent a day in the big leagues."

In all, Rodgers pitched eight seasons in the minor leagues, including parts of three seasons in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League, "where pitchers go to die," he jokes.

His career ended with the Cubs' Triple-A team in Des Moines, Iowa in 2003. Some players Rodgers knows struggle still over becoming one of the 88 percent.

"My road was different," he says. "(Other players) had the dream since childhood. Baseball kind of worked out for me. I went to Wake Forest wanting to become an attorney. I just happened to gain 20 pounds and five miles-per-hour."

"I have no regrets with baseball," says Rodgers. "I had a wonderful season in Lowell and played another seven seasons. Almost everyone in the big leagues I played with or against (in the minors)."

Lowell 1996, in the clubhouse trailer at Alumni Field before LeLacheur Park was built, remained Rodgers' favorite baseball summer. He is still good friends with several of his 1996 teammates. "I can still pretty much tell you about every road trip, about the music we listened to, about every game of whist," he says. "A magical time with good friends."

Surrounded by stars

A right-handed submarine pitcher whose fastball topped out at 82 miles per hour, Zak Basch went 3-2 with a 4.08 ERA and tied for the Lowell team lead with six saves in 2003. He was traded to Oakland in 2004 and released after pitching that season for the Vancouver Canadians in the short-season Class A Northwest League (1-3, 6.17, 23.1 ip).

But Basch, 31, has reached Triple-A -- as coordinator of public relations and baseball operations for the Sacramento River Cats of the Pacific Coast League, the Oakland A's top farm club.

When Brandon Moss passed through Sacramento on his way to Oakland this season, Basch asked if he remembered them being teammates in Lowell in 2003.

"We played together," Basch told Moss.

"No (bleep)," said Moss.

"He didn't remember," Basch says with a laugh.

Of 40 players who suited up for the Spinners in 2003, five made it to the big leagues (Moss, Jonathan Papelbon, David Murphy, Matt Murton and Abe Alvarez).

At one point that summer, Basch's locker was between those of future big-leaguers Murphy and Murton, both 2003 first-round picks who received signing bonuses exceeding $1 million.

"I signed for 1.5 thousand dollars," says Basch, a 13th-round pick that June out of Nevada-Reno.

Basch remembers players in Lowell talking about who would make it. Even though Papelbon's ERA that summer was 6.34, his teammates knew this quirky fourth-round pick from Mississippi State "had it."

"He was on his own planet, and that's not necessarily a bad thing," says Basch with a chuckle. "We would joke that he was going to be on the mound at Yankee Stadium in a 1-1 game someday and be oblivious to the pressure."

"I was always honest about my talent," says Basch. "There are guys you think are going to make it. I didn't think I would."

When the radar gun at Sacramento's Raley Field recently broke, Basch oversaw the repairs. He had not thrown a baseball with any purpose in six years, but let loose one fastball to test the repair job.

The radar gun worked.

"Sixty-six (miles per hour)," Basch says with a laugh. "But our gun is slow, so maybe I throw 70."

Man in blue remembers

Married with two children, Jeff Keaveney is a Westboro police officer and a qualifier for the North American Strongman National Championships in Mississippi in November.

"That's my (athletic) love now," says Keaveney, 36, who during the Lowell Spinners' first two seasons was a 6-foot-5, 240-pound first baseman from Framingham taken by the Red Sox in the 16th round of the 1996 draft out of Southern Maine.

Keaveney batted .249 with four homers and 20 RBI in 49 games in 1996, and batted .204-7-29 in 1997.

Two years after leaving Lowell, struggling to hit at Class A Augusta, Keaveney was released by the Red Sox.

"On my way out the door in Augusta, the guy replacing me was literally coming in the door," he says with a laugh. "I wasn't even out of my locker and the new guy is standing behind me with his bag. It's the pros. If you're not performing well, they have somebody who can replace you."

His baseball career then took a nightmarish turn. That summer, Keaveney caught on with the Waterbury (Conn.) Spirit of the Independent Northern League. In an Aug. 9, 1999 game in Allentown, Pa., Keaveney went after a foul pop and a broken bat hit the left side of his head, fracturing his skull. Emergency surgery was needed to relieve pressure on Keaveney's brain.

"I had to learn to speak all over again," he says.

He battled back to earn an invitation to the Minnesota Twins' minor-league camp in Fort Myers the following spring but was released.

Keaveney is writing a book about his baseball experiences. His working title is taken from a Yogi Berra quote: "You can't think and hit at the same time."

And you can't always tell future big-leaguers at first glance. Eckstein, Keaveney's Lowell teammate in 1997, would play 1,311 big-league games and nine years after Lowell be the World Series MVP as the St. Louis Cardinals' shortstop.

"Oh my god, I remember his first batting practice in Lowell. He was choking way up, and couldn't get the bat around," says Keaveney. "Then he was at second base lobbing grapefruits to me at first.

"Then he got a chance to play. He never wowed you. He just got the job done every single day. Consistency is what they're looking for."

That report also pointed out the 6-foot-5, 215-pounder's struggles with breaking pitches.

A ninth-round pick in 2007 out of LSU-Eunice, Keowen batted .207 with one homer and 15 RBI in 39 games for the Spinners in 2007 and .222-0-13 in 42 games in 2008. Today he teaches social studies and is an assistant baseball and football coach at Denham Springs High outside Baton Rouge, La.

"It's a big rival of the high school I went to," says Keowen, 26, who played baseball and football at Central High School. " I have to hide when I got to a restaurant in my old town (laugh).

"Football is huge down here."

After his two seasons in Lowell, Keowen hit .241 with 10 homers and 32 RBI in 85 games at Greenville in 2009. In spring training 2010, he appeared in a Red Sox major-league spring training game in Sarasota against the Orioles.

"I was on-deck when the game ended," says Keowen. Two days later while minor-league meal money was being passed out, Keowen was told Mike Hazen, then Boston's farm director and now an assistant GM, wanted to see him.

"Never a good thing," says Keowen. "I knew then."

After being released by the Red Sox, Keowen played 35 games that summer for the Sussex Skyhawks of the independent Can-Am League. "When I was released there, I was thinking, 'What am I going to do?' " says Keowen. "I had played baseball since I was four years old. It took me some time to get used to the fact my life had to go on."

So he returned to LSU to finish work toward his degree in sport administration and volunteered as a baseball coach at a local high school.

"I fell in love with coaching," says Keowen.

His first summer not playing baseball, Keowen worked to earn his teaching certification. This past school year he was head baseball coach and assistant football coach at False River Academy in New Roads, La. He has moved on to be an assistant in both sports at Denham Springs High, a school of 1,800 students, which is more than 10 times the size of False River. His new school has a running back headed to Arkansas and defensive linemen headed to LSU.

"I almost always loved football more than baseball," says Keowen. "I was just always better in baseball. So I figured I'd better go play baseball."

And he loved playing before packed houses in Lowell. "When you're in the minor leagues, you never want to go to the same place twice," says Keowen. "But when that place is Lowell, that's not a bad place to go back to."

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